Discourse of the Gospel of Peace, Tract 1 · Chapter 6

Discourse of the Gospel of Peace · Tract 1 · Chapter 6

p. 61CHAP. VI.

Some Objections against, and reflections upon the Gospel of Peace, from the contentions among its Professors, and the oppositions and unpeaceableness that hath arisen upon its first entrance into the world; obviated and answered.

SECT. I.

THAT there hath been frequently commotions, unpeaceableness, and violent oppositions, upon the first entrance of the Gospel into the several parts of the world; and (which is most to its disadvantage) contentions amongst the professors of it, and under pretence of a zeal for it, and its own warranty and obligations, is a sad truth, and too manifest.

The complaint made of the Gospel as such a p. 62make-bait and breaker of the peace, is very ancient, and took it by the heel in its first steps and motions after Christs Ascension. What was there less in that out-cry, They drew Jason—crying, These that have Act. 17. 5, 6.Acts 17:5Acts 17:6turned the world upside down, are come hither also. All the City was on an up-roar. That the Gospel should meet with such entertainment, we have Christs fore-warnings. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, but a sword. And the most unnatural sword too. For, I am come to set a man at variance against Mat. 10. 34.Matt 10:34his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a mans foes shall be they of his▪ own houshold. But this is spoken not of Christs intent, or end of his coming, nor of the tendency of his Gospel in its own nature, but of its event. There is not the least seed in this Gospel that doth naturally, and of its self produce any thing unpeaceable, any thing of hatred, discord, or contention. But as the Apostle saith of the Law, Is the Law sin? God forbid! The Law is holy, just and Rom. 7. 7. V. 12, 14.Rom 7:7good, and spiritual. But sin taking occasion by the Commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. Was then that which is good made death to me? God forbid! but sin that it might appear sin, working death V. 13.in me, by that which is good, &c. In short, the viciousness, Idolatry, ignorance, blind zeal of those to whom it came, took occasion from the Gospel for those disturbances, while the Gospel was perfectly innocent, and gave no such cause in the least.

We know that God the Author of all things, is perfectly good, essential Love. If it be asked, how comes it to pass that there is so much evil of Affliction and Misery in the World? The answer is ready, There is nothing but what is good that p. 63derives from God, as its Original; and all evil of Affliction hath another Spring, which is Sin. And tho God be the most principal efficient Cause of all the Sorrows of Men; yet the original Cause, is ab extra. All good and goodness that derives to the Creature, is originally in God, it hath its first cause in his Love, Goodness, Benignity: But Afflictions (tho from God) are by a kind of necessity. His Justice indeed is ingaged therein, but it is by occasion of Sin, by which the Divine Being is wronged, and affronted by his Creatures. Thus much only in the Negative, to the unjust Imputations on the Gospel of Peace, and for the Explication of the question.

I must now shew you, whence then it is that the Gospel, and Contention, if they be not of kin, or agreed, do thus frequently dwell, and walk together. How come they to be such usual Concomitants, if they are not cause and effect? I shall answer first generally, or give some general Causes of such sad events, where the Gospel enters, and then the more special Causes of unpeaceableness in the several places to be instanced in, and in individual Persons also.

First, It arises from the great interest and power that Sin, the corrupter of Nature, hath in the Soul of faln Man.

From whence come wars and fightings among you? Jam. 4. 1.Jas 4:1come they not hence, even of your lusts, that War in your members? The Gospel is not only designed and adapted to save, but also to sanctifie the Souls of Men; not only to quench the Flames of Hell in the World to come, but also every spark of Lust and Sin in us, while we are in this World.

p. 64Now, as the varying and contradicting Members of the Body of Sin, do militate in the same Subject one against another; so they all agree with all their might to oppose the Gospel, which is their common Adversary. And that which is the greatest Misery, and of all other to be bemoaned is, that Sin, the Corruption of Nature, hath so far insinuated it self into our good Opinion, hath so much of advantage by Nature, Custom, and long time of Possession; hath so assimilated us to its own deformed hateful Image, that we are fond of its mis-rule, and proud of its Chains; 'tis become our familiar; and tho it be the worst of the Devil himself, we are perswaded it will do us no harm. It is become so near essential to us, as if it were indeed no Foreigner, no Enemy, but a part of our very selves.

Therefore the Scripture speaking our Language and Sense, calls the wretched Members of the old Man, or Natures Corruption, our right Eyes, and our right Hands; and the mortifying Sin, our Death and Crucifying; and the restraint of our Lusts, a denying our selves. And can we now wonder at the Opposition rising so high against the Gospel, whose business it is to pluck up these Weeds by the Roots, to purge out this old Leaven, to separate us from those darling Lusts that lie so near our hearts, to commence a War irreconcilable in our own Bowels against this Enemy, that will not be wholly vanquished, till the Fort and Garison it possesses be dissoved? Yea, moreover, when the Sinner shall look on all his Pleasures, deriving from that relish his Sins give them, and that his awakenings out of its sweet Dreams, is no less than letting out p. 65his Soul, and letting loose all the Terrors of Hell upon him: Well, saith a sinful deluded Soul, I must overcome, and banish all the Powers of this Gospel, or it will destroy my so necessary Sins. This makes him buckle to its Opposition, and raise all the Powers of Earth and Hell against it.

Secondly, From Satan, that great Enemy to the Honour of God, and Welfare of Men.

Satan well knows that the Gospel is Gods great Engine to batter his Kingdom in pieces; to take the prey from the Mighty, to deliver his Bondslaves from the power of Darkness, and to translateCol. 1. 13.Col 1:13 them into the Kingdom of the dear Son of God. He knows that for this cause the Son of God was manifested in the Flesh, that he might destroy 1 Joh. 3. 8.1 John 3:8the works of the Devil.

We have a remarkable Description of Satans Opposition to the Gospel, Rev. 12. First his diligent Rev. 12. 1, 2, 3, 4.Rev 12:1Rev 12:2Rev 12:3Rev 12:4attendance to destroy Christ himself, the Seed of the Woman, the Church, at his Birth, by the minstry of the ungodly Herod; then in his own Person to ensnare him by his Temptations; either of which having prevailed, the Gospel had been kill'd in the Bud, stifled in the Birth, and plucked up by the Roots. These attempts not succeding, he pursues the Church, drives her into the Wilderness of Affliction by his Persecutions, that the Gospel and its Professors might be so ill accommodated in all ourward appearance, that few should be prevailed on to embrace it so much to their cost. This was the state of the Gospel, and the Gospel-Church under Heathen Rome in the three first Centuries.

But this course not prevailing neither, (for the Gospel and its faithful profession never lost either p. 66its reputation, or number of adherents by persecution) he insinuates himself into the Church it self, and by an hypocritical, rotten-hearted generation, aiming at nothing less than the high and holy designs of the Gospel, mingles himself with its sincere professors. And now he plays his Master-piece by fighting against Christ under his own Colours. Certainly the days of this temptation are the sorest and the perilous times predicted. In the last days perilous times shall come, for men (professing the Gospel)2 Tim. 3. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.2 Tim 3:12 Tim 3:22 Tim 3:32 Tim 3:42 Tim 3:5 shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, proud, boasters, &c.

The word rendred perilous in this Text, may beforeign. read difficult, difficult times shall come. And what more difficult to discern than a Devil transformed into an Angel of light; Satan in the appearance of a principal Minister, and a zealous promoter of Christ and his Gospel? This new, hypocritical, dangerous, and Tragical Scene is described, v. 7. And there was war in Heaven, Michael and his Angels Rev. 12. 7.Rev 12:7fought against the Dragon and his Angels, and the Dragon fought and his Angels.

By Heaven in the Text, we are to understand the Church on Earth, in that latitude, which takes in all the professors of the Christian Faith. It was this Church, wherein as on a Stage or Theater this Batt…l was fought. By Michael and his Angels, we are to understand the Lord Jesus, and all his Faithful Ministers and adherents. By the Dragon and his Angels; Satan and all that side with him, under the visor of the Christian name and profession, corrupting its Doctrine, and Discipline and Order, and contending for these corruptions by word and deed against Christ and his Faithful adherents, for p. 67promoting those lusts and interests by the Gospel profession, which it doth in its genuine nature, and tendency, most abhor and oppose.

This Battel, tho it began in some small Bickerings and skirmishes in the days of the Apostles; yet till Constantine's time, when much of this world was poured into the lap of the Church, and was a prize thought worth contending for by men whose principles tasted nothing above earth; the Dragons party were not so great and numerous as to perform any great matters against the truth, as it is in Jesus. But what it hath done since, is sufficiently apparent; and what it may do for the future, the Providence of God (for ought I know) will be the only Key to open.

By what hath been said, the cause of the contests and disquietments attending this Gospel of Peace, is manifest. And where the corruptions of the lusts of men, abetted by worldly interests, and inflamed by the spirit of Satan to such an opposition, do meet, we need not wonder at its unreasonableness and fierceness. We have a common saying of those men who act at a rate of Villany and violence beyond the common rate of human force, That the Devil is in them; and certainly where his energy is added to human opposition to the Gospel, as we have shewed; the contest and confusion, the disquietness and oppositions cannot likely be short, of what we have seen and heard of.

SECT. II.

I shall now consider more particularly the causes of this disquietness.

First, In the Jewish Church.

Secondly, Among the Heathen world.

p. 68Thirdly, In the professed Christian world.

Fourthly, In Individuals.

First, The causes of disquietness upon the Gospels entrance amongst the Jews: That there was such disquietness and oppositions, is so well known to all that read the Scriptures with any degree of understanding, that I need not give you a syllable for the proof of that. The first cause I shall assign is, The disappointment of their great, but ungrounded expectation of the Messias to come in the Majesty of a worldly Potentate, and delivering the Jewish Nation from the yoke of Rome-Heathen, and advancing it in exernal splendor above all other Nations.

The mistake that ran current among the Jews, of the true meaning of those Prophetick Texts of Scripture, which prima facie, or literally, spake of the Jewish, or Israelitish Church and their Kings, as clothed with all the worldly pomp and observance imaginable; But their mystical and true sense being of the spiritual seed of Abraham, or the Children of Abraham by promise; and that spiritual glory of them, and their King the Lord Jesus. I say this mistake was the cause of their irreconcileable prejudice against Christ and his Gospel.

We find the Disciples of Christ themselves were not wholly cured of such false conceits; no, not after their Lord was crucified; and they ran so strong in their minds, that they inquire of him, Wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel? meaningAct. 1. 6.Acts 1:6 that external freedom and glory abovesaid.

Now the unconverted and worldly-minded Jews could not endure to have their ungrounded expectations so far disappointed and contradicted, as to p. 69have a Messias, a King, a Saviour born in a common Inn, Cradled in a Manger; whose condition in the world placed him in the form of a servant, brought up among the Chips, no way concerned or intermedling with worldly Politicks; the most abject, hated and despised among men. The Throne of whose glory in this world was a most painful and shameful Cross; executed betwixt two notorious Malefactors, as the most criminal of the three; his Courtiers a few poor Fishermen, his most frequent addresses to Publicans and Sinners. And all that his Doctrine proposed to them, being but a self-denying mortifi…d life in this world, and the hopes of a happiness and eternal life in the other, grounded on the merits of him who was not thought worthy to live in this world, nor to die within, but as an accursed unclean wretch to be cut off without the City.

They commonly covered his purity and glory with the reproach of one born at Nazareth, whence no good thing could be expected, a friend of Publicans and Sinners, the Carpenters Son, a Seducer, a Glutton, and a Wine-bibber, a Blasph…m…r, a caster out of Devils by Be…lzebub, the Prince ofIsa. 52. 14.Isa 52:14 Devils. Upon these considerations, many were astonished at him, his visage was so marred more than any I… 3. 2, 3.mans, and his form more than the sons of men. And as the Prophet proceeds, For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form or comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs. And we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. But p. 70how unreasonable were these causes of quarelling Christ and his Gospel, which were so necessary qualifications of both, seeing that without them the Errand of the Messias into the world would have been wholly frustrate, and their reconciliation to God and eternal Salvation desperate and unattainable? How unreasonable to be offended at the Son of God, for stooping so low, and giving such a pattern of condescending love? Why should they not rather than stumble at such an humble crucified Christ, and a Gospel answerable, be offended at their own pride and vanity, in preferring an earthly before an heavenly glory; and at their being so blind and hardned, and ignorant of the Scriptures they boasted their skill and value of? Surely the Sacrifices, and Prophesies, and Rites of their Law, did so plainly represent the Messias in this humble and afflicted estate, and his Gospel to be so pure and heavenly, that they must as industriously shut their eyes, and wink out its light, not to read therein such plain truths, as they hid their faces from his person, as below their acknowledgments.

The second cause I shall assign was, the danger they supposed or pretended, That if they received Jesus, and his Laws, Caesar would be incensed, and their Nation instead of being saved, would be destroyed.

If thou let this man go, thou art no friend to Caesar. Joh. 19. 15.John 19:15Whosoever maketh himself a King, speaketh against Caesar. This was the charge they urged against him, they pretended to be great Loyalists, and very tender of Caesar's interest; altho it is plain that they abhorred his authority over them. No language was more sweet to them than freedom from his yoke; nor intolerable to their ears than paying him the just acknowledgment p. 71of an easie tribute. We may read their hearts thorough all their pretences, in this one passage, If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on Joh. 11 48.John 11:48him, and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and Nation. Jesus Christ had by his Doctrine, Life, and Miracles, given such an evidence of his being sent of God, that their consciences told them no honest heart could withstand. Let them have but their free course, and they would run and be glorified of all men. But a slavish unreasonable fear that Caesar would deprive them of their worldly possessions (not any regard to the interest of Caesar, their souls or their God) raised their hatred of Christ and his Gospel to such a fermentation. But they little thought that by rejecting this Prince of Peace, and his Gospel of Peace, they should so provoke the God of Peace to become their enemy, that he should s…nd against them those very Romans, whom they so much flattered, and they should take away both their place and Nation to this day, and wrath should come upon them to the utmost. Thus wisely do men provide for themselves, by fighting against God, and rejecting his counsels. He that sinneth Pro. 8. ult.Prov 8against me, wrongeth his own soul; and he that hateth me, loveth death.

When it came to the last trial of their ingenuity, and not only the innocence and excell…ncy of the Lord Jesus pleaded his acceptation, but Pilate a heathen Roman Judg pleads his justification; tells them after all their clamours that he found no fault in him at all; yet they proceed on the old Topick, the pretence of a mighty regard to Caesar, We have no Joh. 19. 1….John 19:1King but Caesar; tho still at the bottom lay those unworthy principles of unreasonable fear, and selflove; p. 72and I may add, profound ignorance of Christ and his Kingdom. Why no King but Caesar? Could they not have had Christ for their King, and Caesar too? To be a good Christian, and a good subject, are so far from an inconsistency that the better Christian any man is, the better subject he will be. Yea to be a good subject, and good in every relation, is a good part of Christianity.

Thirdly, Another cause was that, Christs Doctrine did so much slight and oppose their hypocrisie, and ungrounded expositions, and traditions of the Elders.

The Scribes, Pharisees and Elders of the Jews, had so great an opinion and interest with the people, that they became their very shadow; followed their dictates as Oracles, and were perfectly inslaved to their impositions. If we look into their expositions, how narrow and corrupt were they? How far from that perfect and sincere holiness the Law obliges to? How far from that love to their neighbour (so much the substance of the Law) was that Comment, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy?

What were their Traditions but trifles at best? such as washings before eating, cleansings of cups and vessels? But that of their Corban was the most inhuman, that for a gift to the Temple, which they pretended was to God, they were discharged for ever of any obligation to relieve their own Parents in their greatest necessities or misery. These with their abominable hypocrisies, the Doctrine of Christ was an enemy to, and for that cause the whole body of the Jews were enemies to that, and its Author.

But was there any reason they should quarrel with Christ and the Gospel for these causes? p. 73What good did their hypocrisie do them, but make them stink in the nostrils of God, for seeking by such dissimulations to perfume their reputations with men? What were their Traditions worth, which they did not so much as pretend any authority for, from God; but were only to gratifie that pride that loves to be observed and honoured; tho by robbing God of his honour, and making void his Commandments by their Traditions?

Fourthly, The dissolution of the Jewish Churchstate, with all its Temple-worship.

This Church-state consisted of two things:

1. Of an external figurative Worship, with Rites and Priesthood suitable belonging to it.

2. Of their being the only Church of God in the world, separated from all other Nations and people by Gods choice, with some rites of this signification.

The first of these carried with it a glory that was very dazling to the eyes of beholders, admired for its pomp, richness and contrivance; not only by the Jews, but by all Nations. Two things relating to it they excelled all Nations in, first, in the matter and form of their Rites, and order of their Priesthood. No Temple on earth so celebrated as that at Jerusalem, no order of Priesthood, and their Vestments so venerable. But 2dly, and that which added a greater glory, They were Gods own appointment; they had his authority to justifie and sanctifie them, and the wisdom of his contrivance to put a beauty on them.

It was not the moral Law of the Jews that so signalized them among other Nations, for that they had all of them written in their hearts (tho p. 74not in so clear a Character) as the Jews on the Tables of Stone; but it was the Ceremonial Law. This kind of Worship and Rites the whole world in those days had their Religion made up of, of outward pomp and Ceremony, of mystical sense, and some of them secret to all but their principal Priests, and these were their most venerable mysteries. In these things the Jews had no temptation to change theirs for any of their neighbours. And the second consideration of Gods appointment, and contrivance out-did theirs beyond all measure.

But here I must make a short stop to tell you, that the Heathen pretended no less for all their worship, and its rites. The whole of their Sacra was alway pretended the appointments of their imagined Deities. Nature was not then so blind as (tho it mistook so greatly the Gods they worshipped) as to mistake so far as to believe that their Deities would accept any worship at their hands, the order and forms of which they receiv'd not first from their Oracles. But what were Imaginary Deities to the true God? What was a National, Provincial, or City-ministerial Demy-god to the only true Sup…eme God, and Lord of Heaven and Earth?

This Glory of External Typical Rites and Worship, the Gospel utterly stripped them of, and left them to the naked simplicity of Spiritual Worship (except the two positives of the Lords-Supper and Baptism) The time cometh, and now is, that they that worship the Father must worship him in spirit and in truth. In spirit, not in carnal rites, material things without life: In truth, not in shadows and resemblances, which are b…t appearances, not the things themselves.

p. 75This the Jews could not bear; yea, the converted Jews were hardly brought off from them, when they were espoused to Jesus Christ and his Gospel. They were willing to entertain him and his more manly and real furniture and order, but also they would fain have retained their childish shadows. And indeed we have little cause to wonder at their lothness to part with such a splendid order and worship (once of Gods appointment) at the call of the Gospel, and their rising up in opposition to it, for this (tho but supposed) wrong; having so near our doors less things of meer and confessed human invention so hotly contended for.

But what reason had they to be offended at the Gospel, for removing beggarly Elements, carnal Ordinances, to make way for Spiritual and real exercises and enjoyments, suited to an intelligent rational soul? What reason to rise up in such a fury, for removing the Picture, when the person it represented was to take up its room? to be offended at parting with that which was no glory, by reason of that which excelleth, and which the Gospel brought along with it?

2dly, The priviledg of being Gods peculiar people, the only Church in the world, being abolished by the Gospel; made the blood boil in their veins at the very mention of it. Isaias was said to be veryRom. 10. 20.Rom 10:20 bold, who dare adventure to deliver a message of this import from God himself, I was found of them that sought me not, I was made manifest to them that inquired not after me. And tho they had little patienceAct. 22. 21, 22, 23.Acts 22:21Acts 22:22Acts 22:23 for the Apostle Paul's defence, yet, they heard him to that word. And he said unto me, Depart, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles. Now they could p. 76hold no longer, all patience was broken. Away with such a fellow from the earth, it is not fit he should live.

Wherefore all this anger? was it because he would preach the Gospel no more to them? No, that was it they had no mind to; but to carry it to the Gentiles, to break down the partition-wall, to preach a Law from heaven that shined with an equal grace on all mankind, this galled them, and filled them with the bitterness of envy. But alas, what evil did the Gospel do in this? what wrong did it to the Jews? Had not the Sun of Righteousness light enought to impart to all the world? and all at one time too, in which he excels the Sun in the Firmament? I shall say no more on this head, but the apparent as well as designed conclusion, That this cause of their disquietness on the Gospel approach, was altogether unreasonable. The Gospel was no criminal party to the breach of he peace.

SECT. III.

The causes of disquietness and opposition among the heathen world, upon the approach of the Gospel of peace into their quarters.

The Scriptures (especially the History of the Acts of the Apostles) do so fully bear witness to the matter of fact, that I am unwilling to imply a suspition of my Readers unacquaintedness of so notorious a truth; tho I shall take leave to add, that there was none, or little of violent opposition from the heathen for forty years, but what was stirred up by the Jews, who dwelt in their several Nations and Cities. Nero was the first Roman Emperor that by publick prosecutions opposed it: And in many places it was entertained friendly by them.

Cause 1. It cast down their Idols, and rendred their Idolatries unreasonable and damnable things.

p. 77It might well seem hard to men to have their gods (tho but imaginary ones) blasphemed, as they took it. For the Gospel declared the one only true God, excluding not only by what that implied, but expresly all their Idols to be false gods; yea, devils and not gods; For such Daemons they were that joyned themselves to their Idols, and gave forth their Oracles. What we read of the man Micah, when his Levite left him, and took his Images with him, is the exact Specimen of the humour of Idolaters, that are (pardon the term) religiously so. What aileth thee (said the Danites to Micah) that Judg 18. 23, 24.Judg 18:23Judg 18:24thou comest after us with such a company? And he said, Ye have taken away my Gods which I made, and the Priest, and ye are gone away, and what have I more? What is this that ye say unto me, What aileth thee? All the complaints and emotions of the soul imaginable, are no such extravagant things as to be wondred at in such a case.

And I may here take leave to observe, that as too ordinarily the professors of the one only true God, are criminally and unbecomingly loose, indifferent, and defective in their respects to him and his worship whom they can never value to excess: So the Votaries of false gods, and false worship, are commonly beyond all measures in the zeal of their Idols and Superstitions. I perceive (said the ApostleAct. 17. 2.Acts 17:2 of the Athenians) ye are in all things too superstitious. Their Religion (such as it was) which they deemedforeign. the fear or service of the gods, had no bounds in the outward expressions of it. And therefore, tho they had altars to gods, and Lords many, too many, almost innumerable, and their Sacra and Rites so excessive, they must add one altar to the unknown God, p. 78that they might compass within their Religion the very Terra incognita of Religion. This the Apostle expresses by Daemon-fear, which like the Devil is tyrannical, tormenting, holding men always on the rack of doubt that they have not done enough to secure themselves of being accepted.

And if we consider what hath been said, with this addition, that the Heathen as they represented their Deities commonly by human shapes and forms, so also by human passions, and the worst of mens vices as their qualifications, as theft, murder, uncleanness, treachery, drunkenness, and all manner of debauches, and luxury; and agreeable to this, were the actions by which they pretended to honour and please them, scil. Feasts, Plays, Drunkenness, obscenities, and vicious excesses. These things (I say) considered, as the cause is plain, so the unreasonableness of opposing the Gospel for such causes is as plain and obvious.

Secondly, The Gospel proposing the Son of God made man, and him crucified, to be the only Mediator of our reconciliation, and acceptance with God, and our eternal happiness; with the Doctrines of the Trinity in Ʋnity, Resurrection of the Body, and other Mysteries revealed, and peculiar to the Christian Religion.

These great and fundamental Truths of the Gospel, were the mysteries hidden from many ages, and which nothing but Divine Revelation Supernatural could make known to us, nor any thing short of miraculous, the apparent finger of God, be a sufficient conviction to man that these things were the Revelation of God.

The Heathen had some apprehension that some extraordinary thing was to be done to appease and p. 79reconcile to men their angry Deities, but especially the Supream God. They had their rites and mysteries, they had their sacrifices of blood, and sometimes of human blood, among the more civilized Nations. The former sort may be presumed to be received first by tradition, the spring and origin of which to them was utterly lost. The latter, (if in imitation of what was commanded to Abraham not executed) was begun by the Oracles of him who is the great Abaddon.

But their Mediators were their demi-gods, such as were once Heroes among men, whom for their excellent vertues and usefulness when in the world, they placed in heaven as gods of a second rank, and such they thought worthy to interpose betwixt the supreme God and men, by their intercession and ministry. But how unlike to these notions of their Mediators was, a crucified Carpenter's Son, an illiterate mean malefactor, for such were their notions of him, which the unbelieving Jews were industrious to furnish them with?

Therefore as a crucified Christ was a stumbling 1 Cor. 13. 21.1 Cor 13:21block to the Jews, so he was to the Greeks foolishness. Foolishness to believe that this Mediator with God would have any such efficacy as the Gospel pretended; foolishness to believe that they ought to make him the object of their faith and worship. It was the common reproach of the Christians among the Heathen, that they worshipped a crucified God. And this was the first rise of the figure of the Cross, worn on mens apparel. For the Christians to tire them, and discourage them from so reproaching, they did hereby let them know that they took it not for their shame, but their glory.

p. 80The Doctrines of the Gospel which asserted the Trinity, Resurrection, &c. they d…rided, because they did not understand them. That of the Resurrection was d…rided by the learned Athenians. What (said they when the Apostle preached it) will this babler say? No wonder at all this, seeing they lookt on themselves as able to penetrate by their wit and learning into any truth; and what was beyond that prospect, they rejected as foolish.

Thirdly, Their misrepresenting the Gospel and practice of Christians to the greatest disadvantage for absurdities and impieties.

There were no crimes so brutish and vile that they did not charge upon the Christians and their Religion. The Christians had large experience of the blessedness our Lord Jesus pronounced of them, of whom all manner of evil was spoken falsly for his Mat. 5. 11.Matt 5:11name-sake. It was the measure Christ himself met with, who did all things well, who was on earth the infallible Oracle, the Essential and Divine Truth. He was reported to be a Seducer, a Deceiver of the people, a Conjurer, and Glutton, a Winebibber, and what not? The Scriptures give us a large account of the reproaches cast on the Apostles, and the primo-primitive Christians, that they were stirrers up of …edition, enemies to all Government; yea, that they had a principle pregnant of all mischief, scil. to stir up one another to do evil that good might come thereby. It would be tooRom. 3. 8.Rom 3:8 large to recite what some of the Fathers, especially Tertullian, Justin Martyr, and Origen, report of the Slanders the Heathen raised on the Christian Doctrine and practices. As that they had no Religion at all, but were perfect Atheists (which is supposed p. 81to be the first cause of the Christians calling their Ministers by the name of Priests, and their Communion-Tables by the name of Altars, for that those who had not these, were thought by the Heathen to acknowledg no God.)

The Christians were misrepresented, as guilty of Whoredoms, Incestuous meetings, feeding on human flesh, yea that of innocent infants; which the Heathen maliciously grounded on their Doctrine of eating the flesh of Christ in the Sacrament, tho the true sense of that Doctrine, and the Christians practice was, a Spiritual feeding on a Crucified Christ, by a lively faith.

They were falsly charged with setting the City of Rome on fire: All mischiefs (whoever were the Authors) the Christians must bare the blame of. All plagues of death, Famine, Inundations, and whatever was adverse, was imputed to the wicked Doctrines and lives of the Christians. This caused it to be the common cry of the deceived imbittered people, Christianos ad Leones, whenever any such thing hapned.

We may see that this way of misrepresenting is not a new, but an old trick of the Devil, who being Satan, so malicious an enemy, turns devil, a false accuser, and accuses, that he may be to the Saints a true Abaddon, their cruel destroyer. And this had been so successful an Engine against the Gospel, and its sincere professors, that the Father of lies will never leave it 'till he be cast out of Heaven, and bound hand and tongue too, as is written of him. And (the Dragon and his Angels)Rev. 12 9, 10.Rev 12:9Rev 12:10 prevailed not, neither was their place found my more in heaven. And the Dragon was cast out, that old. Serpent called the Devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth, and his Angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ, for the accuser of our br…thren is cast down, which accused th…m before our God day and night.

This Context is doubtless to be understood of Satan's being cast out of the Church on earth, or the Eccl…siastical state. And his accusing of the Saints before God, is of the same sense with that in Job of Satans appearing in the presence of God amongJob. 6, 11. Job 2. 3, 5.Job 6:11Job 2:3Job 2:5 the Angels to accuse Job; and as the Text saith, moved God against him, i. e. to prove his integrity by afflictions.